Bits of Me are Falling Apart: Dark Thoughts from the Middle Years by William Leith

The Sunday Times review by Matt Rudd: a hard-core hypochondriac writes about a single day in his gloom-laden existence

Thank Christ that's over. And what a relief it was only 202 pages. But that's still 202 pages of a 47-year-old manic-depressive mourning the loss of his youth. It's enough to make you mourn the loss of your youth.

William Leith's "dark thoughts from the middle years" wouldn't be so jump-off-the-nearest-cliff effective if he were a bad writer - you could sort of dismiss it - but he isn't. He's an extremely good writer. Very funny. A hack of long-standing (47, you see, as he won't let himself or anyone else forget) and high regard, he knows how to put an idea across cleanly and crisply. So this book's central idea - that everything is rubbish, we're all going to die, what's the point anyway, to hell with it all - is presented with alarming clarity. If you make it to the end (and I'm not sure you should, particularly if you are older